Boiled Fin

The late off-season is a time for lazy reflection about hockey. Your team has mostly finished their big moves and important signings, and fans are quibbling about the 4th line center spot. You start to yearn for a pre-season game featuring any player that’s available. Even Ben Eager or Darcy Harhardon’tmakemelaughichuk. Here are five things I’m thinking about in the dog days of summer:

1) Between their fans, their unprofessional beat writers on twitter, and even their newest players, the Blackhawks can’t stop talking about us. I’ve heard more about the Canucks from them this summer than I have from the Canucks themselves. At this rate I’m sure every new Hawks player gets a free Canucks voodoo doll with their contract – complete with a red and black pin. But really, it’s all so Shakespearean. All this whining and hate, it must mean they secretly love us. What’s that phrase? "Me thinks the hockey player doth protest too much." The Canucks Puck Daddy Eulogy sounded like the Hawks blogger got drunk off wine coolers, told his dog how much he hates the Canucks, and then transcribed it all in his diary with his glitter pen.

At this rate Alex Burrows is going to come home and find Fin boiling in a pot on the stove. Might I suggest a new hobby? Hot yoga? Baseball? Beer pong? Pin the awkward smile on Toews? 50 ways to sterilize Dan Carcillo?

2) While I always enjoy my Ryan Kesler in permanent beast mode and would prefer him to be healthy, his surgery rehab might be a small blessing in disguise if he has more time to tweet. The other day there was a flurry of tweets that were silly and ridiculous and showed some personality. It was nice to see, and I hope the Canucks relax their rigid twitter constraints

3) I wish Jannik Hansen made audio books. How fun would that be? Honestly I think road rage across Vancouver would drop considerably if people were listening to Hansen read Goodnight Moon and Game of Thrones as they made their way around town.

4) Luongo should be given a stress ball and a burn book. I think his road game woes this year would be solved.

5) Cody Hodgson needs a better nickname. I’m sorry but CoHo is not working for me. He’s not a damn salmon. Perhaps "5 minutes" to represent how many minutes AV will play him a night. Or "lego man". He kind of has lego hair, ya know? Anyways, it needs some work. I hope he has an awesome season and earns a bad ass nickname.